The University of Southern California (USC) Democracy Project responds to the inadequacies of traditional civics education, particularly its failure to engage marginalized students in meaningful democratic participation. Grounded in the theories of John Dewey and Paulo Freire, the project uses an action civics model to connect students with…

For many high school students, the benefits of civic education seem irrelevant and take place in their future lives. Student performance on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) in Civics is stagnant. In 2018, the average civics score for eighth-grade students was not significantly different from 2014 and had only increased by 3…

Centered in critical race theory (Latcrit) and conceptualization of community cultural wealth, this study explores first-generation Latina/o/x students' motivations to attend college and persist to degree completion. Additionally, this study examines the overlapping forms of cultural wealth that participants access throughout their educational…

The marketization of U.S. schools has increasingly complicated and even undermined the democratic aims of education, causing many to argue that democratic and market ideologies are fundamentally opposed. This meta-ethnographic study uses conceptual tools from democratic theory and the research on civic education to investigate how leaders in one…

Education by Experience (Educación por la Experiencia, E × E) is a programme that offers an innovative model of teaching values to children, youth, and adults. Its materials include different grade-level student textbooks as well as educator and parent guidebooks. Since its establishment in 2010, the programme has achieved broad dissemination and…

As immigrants account for an increasing proportion of American youth, understanding how these young people experience change in their citizenship status is an important, yet rarely examined area for research. There is a plethora of evidence that opportunities to participate in American society are stratified according to class, race and ethnicity.…

Service learning (SL) engages students in intentional, collaborative service experiences that promote civic citizenship. The COVID-19 pandemic forced traditional face-to-face SL courses to transition into virtual service learning (e-SL). This paper examines the academic and civic outcomes of an e-SL binational sustainable tourism course for…

In recent years, youth across the planet have begun to mobilise, motivated by the perceived injustices associated with the causes, consequences and politics of climate change. However, education systems lag behind, preoccupied with the "what" and "how" of climate change, rather than engaging it as a social issue in which…

The Town Hall Meeting (THM) program at California State University, Fullerton has been annually incorporated into several Introduction to American Politics course sections since 2011, to improve academic performance and promote civic engagement among enrolled students. This article provides a detailed analysis of results from a 2017…

This article analyzes how guns emerged as both urgent topics of dialogue and common features of everyday life for 228 students and their teachers in six communities across the United States who participated in the Digital Democratic Dialogue (3D) Project, a year long social design-based experiment aimed at foregrounding youth voice and fostering…

How can school mathematics prepare citizens for a democratic society? Answers to this question are not static; they change as society and its problems change. The SARS-CoV-2 pandemic with its corresponding disease COVID-19 presents such a problem: what is needed to navigate this complex situation that involves, among other things, mathematics?…

Immigration is a cornerstone of American growth and success. More than 1 million immigrants arrive in the United States each year, looking for opportunities to build a better life and become a part of their new communities. Facilitating immigrant integration is central to maintaining a cohesive social fabric and strong communities. Adult schools…

In this study, we reflected on the process of designing and implementing a civics curriculum model focused on increasing upper-grade secondary students' involvement in local civic activity. We prioritized examining the challenges and possibilities of institutionalizing partnerships between teachers, students, community leaders, and local…

Using a student-centered approach, Generation Citizen's (GC) action civics model helps students gain civic knowledge and skills as they work together to take action on a local issue in their community. This paper draws upon reflections from GC's decade-plus of teaching action civics at scale in middle and high schools across the United States,…

California delivers Integrated English Literacy and Civics Education using performance-based instruction and assessment. This ensures English language learners are prepared to participate in society as workers, parents, and active community members. This article describes the 20-year-old program's history, structure, requirements, and successes.